Several years ago I worked for another company called Mosaic, and I had the pleasure of working alongside Lynda Campbell, accountant extraordinaire. I leaned on Lynda for advice in late 2008, as I began laying the foundation for Creative Squall. She not only knows accounting inside and out, but she knows how to relate it to the audience she’s talking to. It’s her background in marketing and her experience in many different vertical markets that makes her one of my favorite accountants people to talk to. We spent some time talking about the creativity inherent to painting, photography and accounting. That’s right accounting. And we’re not talking cooking the books.

Tell us a little bit about your background and how you got to where you are today.

I’m a graduate of Texas Tech University. I graduated from there in 1982. I have a bachelors of business administratin degrees in accounting and marketing. So, kind of an odd combination. I’ve always said I must be schizophrenic. (laughs)

I’ve worked in a number of industries. I’ve worked in commercial real estate. I have worked in plumbing wholesales. I have worked in advertising/graphic design. And I’ve worked in the gaming industry, not video games. I should say video poker or gambling gaming.

Now I work for a non-profit. So, I’ve kind of done a lot of different things, and one of the things that I’ve found is that accounting is accounting. You’re counting money, and reporting on it. The differences are in the way that the people in the different industries think. And I think that’s where my marketing background came in handy, making those transitions from industry to industry a little easier. That also allows me to speak English not accounting-ese.

Why did you decide to get a degree in both accounting and marketing?

When I first went to college, I was actually accepted at Texas Tech with the intent of being a civil engineering major. I switched to accounting, because I decided I really didn’t want to go with a degree that pretty much at that time was a four and half to five year degree. So, I switched to accounting and business. That’s what my dad was. And come to find out, I learned very early on that I think in debits and credits, not intentionally, before I even knew what they were. So that part of it came pretty naturally, but I wasn’t doing as well in accounting grade-wise as I had has always done through school. In my junior year, I started thinking about it and took some tests, and basically, they said I should be in either accounting or marketing.

I switched my major to marketing, and then discovered that I was only nine hours short of having an accounting degree. So, I stayed an extra summer, and got the accounting degree. As it turned out, I’ve never used the marketing. While I was in school, Sanger-Harris offered me a job. About a month before I finished my last class, Sanger-Harris sent me a letter that said, “I’m sorry, but due to the economy, we’re going to have to resend our offer.” So, the only jobs I could get were in accounting. I’m now, all these years later, a CPA, and I’ve been in accounting ever since.

Do you find that there are similarities between those two fields?

No. They really are left brain versus right brain.

One of the things that I did in my marketing classes was case studies. Where the accounting fits into the marketing is no matter what you’re doing you’re always trying to drive dollars one way or the other. So, in that respect, yes, they are similar. I don’t care what business you’re in, you have to make money, and you have to spend money. In that area, they relate to each other.

Marketing is all about telling people about a product. Accounting is counting the money. But in accounting you do have to realize that you do have customers just like a marketer does. That’s what people don’t realize. In accounting your customer is, if you’re in private industry, the other people that work at your company or that you report to outside — bankers, depending on the kind of field your in. My customers at a non-profit are the president, the chief operating officer, the head of our development department — which is the department that goes out and gets us donors — or the people in marketing. I have to give them the right kind of reports. So, in a way I market to them by giving them reports that they need to see, so they can account for what they’re spending or bringing in.

Do you find that the relationships are stronger since these are clients you see regularly?

Internally, the relationship is totally different. When you’ve got a client, your client has to believe in you in order to sign that contract to let you do whatever design you’re going to do for them or sell them whatever service you’re going to sell them. Internally, you’re more or less forced on the clients, in other words, the president, the COO or the CFO, whoever hired the people in accounting. So, the director of events has no choice in who’s hired. I have found that the image of the person who’s in the job prior to you can affect your relationship with your internal clients. In marketing or graphic design, you’re going to outside people, and although they may have prejudices towards your profession to some extent, they only hire you if they feel a connection to you.

Much like you can’t choose your family, but you can choose your friends.

That’s right. So, internally, those people have no choice. They have to work with me whether they like me or not. I do have the option of working on those relationships, because they are there daily. It still is just a very different relationship. They didn’t choose me like your clients choose you.

Most of them are good relationships. Don’t get me wrong.

Do you have a favorite vertical industry that you’ve worked in?

Commercial real estate is dry. It’s building.

In all of the industries, or most of them, I’ve enjoyed the people I’ve worked with. I found that the people, at the time, in the wholesale plumbing industry were very passionate about what they do, and I found the same thing in the graphic design industry. I love that passion. I haven’t really seen that so much in the other industries that I’ve worked in.

So, I guess, in plumbing that also sounds so weird. I mean you’re selling toilets and pipe, and the people in that industry at that time, when they got together, that’s what they talked about. No matter whether you stop to talk about the Cowboys or the Rangers or whatever, it always goes back to plumbing wholesale with them. I really enjoyed that.

Working at Mosaic, the individuals in the graphic design industry really love what they’re doing.

Almost to their detriment. (laughs)

Yeah, yeah. I think the other side to that which you and I touched on earlier in a private conversation about having to learn the business end of it is one of the issues of that industry. It’s being run by people who don’t really like the numbers. They’re extremely creative, but they don’t really enjoy the numbers. So, they don’t want to do it, and many don’t make themselves do it.

You’ve taken that step past that. You’re making yourself do it. You’re making yourself learn to like it. That’s kind of off the topic though. (laughs)

Not necessarily. You’re describing a little bit of a dichotomy between the creative side of stuff versus the accounting side. I know most people may look at what you lovingly call crunching numbers as not being very creative. Do you feel that’s a fair assessment of accounting?

When you talk about just accounting, it’s not necessarily creative. It is crunching numbers. It is recording the activity of the company. Where the creativity comes in — and I’m going to use that loosely, because the problem is people thinking it’s cooking the books, and that’s not what I’m talking about. That’s something totally different. That’s illegal. When you report to different people, different people need different information. So, the creativity comes in being able to pull the information together in a manner that makes sense to the people so that they can use it.

So, it boils down to creating better communication depending on who your audience is?

Exactly! You have to know your audience, and a lot of times that’s something you have to learn. But I’ve had more people come to me and say, “You know, Lynda, my accounting department just doesn’t get it. I can’t get good numbers out of them.” Well, that’s a communication issue. They’re not speaking the same language, and someone who has at least a little bit of creativity and can speak English can figure out what they need and how to provide that information. That’s the creative side.

Branding defines your company on a psychological level connecting emotionally with the consumer. Your brand should resonate on a personally with your clients, giving them the sense that you understand their needs/desires. Brand goes beyond just selling your product/service it should sell your company culture. Your brand alone can differentiate you from your competitors in an over-crowded market. (Coke vs. Pepsi, Target vs. Walmart, Levis vs. Wrangler)

Branding should be consistent and apparent in every form of communication for your company. Whether it’s visual imagery or written communication, everything your company does should reflect the overall brand feel. Think of your brand as a mission statement, corporate philosophy or mantra. (Zappos is a great example of company culture permeating into the customer service promise.)

Why focus on brand?

By focusing on your brand you define why you’re the best, what makes you unique and you expand your market potential. Aside from the technical keypoints of your business, your company will take on a personality which can give you the edge with your targeted demographic. Strong brands create loyal customers. This translates to people who will buy your product without considering a cheaper alternative. (Apple, Nike, Prada)

Branding provides the differentiation between the perception of a small business versus a corporation.

Successful branding begins through consumer education and doesn’t happen overnight. Think of it like an exercise program, only through consistent and persistent execution will you begin to see results in the longterm. There are 3 key phases to branding, and not every company makes it to all of the phases.

In the introductory phase or reintroductory phase for existing brands, consumers are first exposed to the brand through consistent use of the logo as well as a recognizable color palette and overall visual and copy style. In this stage, it’s necessary to take every opportunity to keep the logo mark (if any) and logo type together to build the association of the two. The overall marketing communication should be focused on what it is you offer, and what you do better than your competitors. A more direct but creative tagline should be introduced. More importantly, the tagline should appear in all of your marketing efforts at this stage. Consistency is especially key in the early stages, since you’re building an association with all of the elements of your marketing efforts. Think of this phase as the world’s longest first date, especially since you have so many new faces to introduce yourself to.

The retention phase is where you can start to explore the brand culture and do some creative experimenting with the foundation you’ve already established. By this stage, the consumer should be familiar with the company name and what you offer. Your branding efforts should start to focus more on the personality. You can start using the logo mark in unexpected ways, but it’s important to keep the the mark and logo type together at this stage as well. Taglines and messaging can start taking a more creative focus selling abstract ideals versus direct messaging at this point. The key to this phase is reinforcing brand loyalty since your key customers are familiar with your company name and services by this point. This stage can be equated to a relationship you’ve had for a few years, you know them pretty well, but you still aren’t ready to pee with the door open.

The majority of companies don’t make it to the final Pioneering phase. Not due to poor marketing or bad branding, but more to do with the type of industry they are in. This stage is usually reserved to the heavy-hitters that are really associated with a lifestyle/culture choice. (Apple, Nike, Coke) This is stage where the majority of the marketing focuses solely on reminding everyone about the company name. A lot of times the logomark is all that’s necessary, since consumers are so familiar with the company even if they aren’t a fan. Often consumers don’t know why they like one product over another, but they are dedicated fans. Experimentation is key to this phase. Have fun with the brand while never losing site of what you’re company is about. This would be the friend that you trust and can complete their sentences. You feel like you’ve known them for years, and maybe you have.

In the end, your brand is your company’s personality. Just as you value friends that you can trust and rely on through the years because you know them, your company will become a brand that your customers will learn to trust and rely on over the years.

If you like what you’ve read leave a comment or better yet send me an email at tad@creativesquall.com.